Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

Not sure it really matters, seems like pretty much every state was going to abandon mandates no matter what the CDC says at this point. Even the more liberal places around me are abandoning mask and vaccine mandates next week.

My daughter flew from Bergen to Hamburg yesterday, no mask required.

whoa

It's been interesting to see some of the venue owners around here decide they are going to follow the state and city in dropping the mask mandate, but are choosing to keep the vaccine requirement for now. I think that's actually a decent compromise in trying to navigate things for the next few months, but the blowback they've been getting is shameful. A lot of people, even those who were supportive of mask and vaxx mandates, seem to have hit a wall where they are just fucking done with masks and showing their cards and just cannot handle hearing private businesses still might want to see them.

I get being done with masks, but being mad about showing someone a thing to enter a venue is deranged

Yeah, I was honestly taken aback when I saw how furious people were getting over even that.

lol yeah, god forbid i show something at the door to get into a bar or venue that proves i'm legally allowed to be there

is this all going to end with the anti-vaxxer conspiracy minds agreeing to get a chip implanted in their hand so that they can enter and leave public spaces without being asked for credentials?

because bill gates runs that operation, that's a bad idea, anti-vaxxers

It's a long con.

Eric Feigl-Ding, the nutritionist covid doomer guy, has transitioned full-time into geopolitics and explainers about chernobyl now, a very strong sign that the pandemic is getting better

— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) February 25, 2022

lol

Finally got around to getting my booster yesterday and I feel like a truck ran over me, had the chills/fever/lack of sleep most of the night.

Liberals are vastly overstating their risk of death from a nuclear blast. Only 60% of the people within the blast radius are actually instantly vaporized. 30% die days later, during which time in-person school could easily be safely maintained.

by Nate Silver

— J. Van Wyck (@TheRealJVanWyck) February 26, 2022

Lol

It's kind of fascinating at this stage just who in my friend and family group has tested positive (ever) and who hasn't. A buddy just tested positive for the first time a couple of days ago (he's fine), and his family has been among the most cautious/paranoid of my circle (his family has not tested positive so far). Another family of four has an immunocompromised teen son (type 1 diabetes), and the son is the only one that's ever knowingly caught it (back around Christmas, when every kid caught it; he was fine). Another family, two of the three caught it, but not the dad, who does the most traveling (often elective) and is most at risk at work, including multiple exposures; only one of their four visiting family members at the time caught it from them. A family of five close to us, no one has tested positive so far, not even the one that travels a lot for work and spent weeks in mask-free Ohio. A family of six we know, their eldest tested positive while away at college (pre-vaccine, like a lot of college kids), but no one else until this past Christmas (their youngest; she was fine). Neighbors across the street from us, just the father caught it, no one else, not even when they were all stranded in Mexico together waiting for him to test negative again. Just weird how, for an illness that spreads really easily, we've yet to see it spread through an entire household of anyone we know.

(Actually, I can think of one. It was also pre-vaccine, and his Texas republican mom, who stopped off to visit another conservative nut in Tennessee first, spread it to him, his wife and their son; the other son caught it at college around the same time.)

Just weird how, for an illness that spreads really easily, we've yet to see it spread through an entire household of anyone we know.

I hate to "well actually" in the thread but I'm gonna "well actually" in the thread -- it's not weird! The fact that it's not typical for a case in a household to infect the whole household, even when the infection isn't initially known and no precautions are taken, has been documented since the beginning of the pandemic. And it's not that surprising -- yeah it spreads easily, but what that means is that if you go around being infectious for a week, in that whole amount of time, the total number of ALL the people you interact with in that time who you infect is gonna be, I dunno, 3 (original strain) or maybe as much as 10 (omicron) but still -- not a lot of people compared to the total number of people you spend time with! Yeah you have more contact with the people in your household, but there are also people you're in a room with at work for eight hours! "Spreading easily" doesn't mean "you're sure to get it if you're in close contact with a contagious person" or even close.

Everyone was wearing optional masks at Walgreens this morning. We will see what it's like at Costco. One of my kids texted to say it was about 70-30 mask versus no mask at school, but that everyone feels weird taking them off, even if they want to.

My workplace still hasn't changed their requirements, apparently further info on that "coming soon", so I've yet to notice any difference.

I have two Chicago friends (not in ILX circles) who have tested positive in the past week, which leaves me wondering how many cases are going undocumented vs. the "only 11 per 100,000 people" stats.

Costco was 90% masked, shoppers and employees alike. My wife had to go into the office today for the first time in maybe months, and she says of the 15 there, one is wearing a mask. I think plenty of people (obv.) continue to get sick, but if you're vaxxed it doesn't seem to be much of an issue. I don't know anyone that's tested positive as of late that's had worse than a scratch in their throat, really. Or maybe cold-like symptoms for a couple of days. Which would also lend credence to any suspicion there are a lot of undiagnosed people wandering around out there. But that's probably likely because they generally feel fine and haven't felt the need to get a test. I literally can't think of the last time I've seen anyone, anywhere, coughing and sneezing like I regularly did in the past.

Are people still being asked to test regularly by their employers? Just a straw poll question

I test voluntarily twice a week: after a weekend, before the weekend. Voluntary.

lol I guess I wanted to emphasize it.

blink three times in a row if you are currently being tested against your will alfred

if you're vaxxed it doesn't seem to be much of an issue

which is very positive news. but around here the hospitals and ICUs are still very full, albeit less full than two weeks ago. our daughter urgently needs basic dental care, which cannot be done for her without anesthesia administered in a hospital, but the hospital where her dentist has privileges is still not allowing any "elective surgeries" because of covid demands from the omicron surge.

Lol

I still get tested once a week minimum; sometimes several times a week depending on the client.

It’s one of the things keeping me from going to the movies or being more impromptu about accepting invitations. If i go on the shelf my freelance-ass shuts down for 10 days or whatever the guidance is now

ymmv but movies are among the safest things you can do. Go early, sit in the back, and wear a mask.

Is a movie basically safe? Because mask and social distance?

What about if you eat popcorn?

Anyway, I was going to movies before omicron and loving it, planning to go again very soon.

I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me at an Alamo Drafthouse last week, and I even took off my mask to eat pizza and drink beer. It was good.

also sat at the bar and had dinner at fancy-ish tex-mex restaurant the other day

I've eaten popcorn at the movies in the last six months, but I also went at 11 a.m. and could've sat in the nude without anyone bothering me.

Today at work, no masks for the registered vaxxed, and three weeks more of masks left for the rest. Feels almost uncomfortable not wearing a mask, not just because I've gotten used to singing quietly along with the headphones over the last month. Find myself reaching up and touching my face to adjust the phantom mask a lot.

Are people still being asked to test regularly by their employers? Just a straw poll question

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Monday, February 28, 2022 1:58 PM bookmarkflaglink

Nope. I do 2-3 times a week tho

Florida's COVID wave is bottoming out, less than 3,000 existing COVID hospitalizations and less than 500 existing ICU beds statewide. (Note there is a pretty decent amount of fluctuation if you look at the county level).

Cases also plummeting and test positivity rate just over 5% (from a high of 31.3% last month).

DeSantis will of course take the credit, even though his two year "let her rip" approach once again killed tens of thousands of people.

Miami-Dade's positivity rate hit a bit less than 5 percent for the first time since early December.

At DC for a brief weekend trip, days after vax/mask mandates expired, I was reassured by the number of bars requiring vax passports and shops with "No Mask, No Service" signs.

I've been testing once every other week now, but that's voluntary and not per employer's direction. Since I'm up to date on my booster, I'm only required to test should I be identified as a close contact.

Chicago's positivity rate is at 1.4% daily average this week (statewide we are at 1.87%), which is really nice to see.

Miami-Dade's positivity rate hit a bit less than 5 percent for the first time since early December.

At DC for a brief weekend trip, days after vax/mask mandates expired, I was reassured by the number of bars requiring vax passports and shops with "No Mask, No Service" signs.

if you're vaxxed it doesn't seem to be much of an issue

Thanks to diligent contact tracing, this is correct.

(I’ve gone to multiplex movies in the last few months by checking the seating chart 15 minutes before start time, and walking down if it’s 3% or less full. I’ll eat popcorn if I’m alone.)

Forget covid, people eating popcorn - chewing it, leaving it all over the place, the smell of the fake butter - has always been one of my least favorite things about going to the movies.

You didn't mention spilling it.

Or even stepping on it and tracking it after someone else has spilled it during that lights out time when the announcements and previews have started.

Butter stench as part of communal experience reminds me: I went to a play in early December in a theater with maybe 400-500 in the audience, and it's funny how it felt like being on a crowded bus versus the isolated car-space of watching drama at home. And the stage acting seemed exaggerated after two years of seeing only acting for the camera.

(Also have had a couple of wonderful experiences at movies, in mostly empty theaters.)

I've eaten popcorn at the movies in the last six months, but I also went at 11 a.m. and could've sat in the nude without anyone bothering me.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 28, 2022 11:40 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Why do you tempt us with such delicious thoughts?

i had words with a fella last weekend at the movies, i had the theater all to myself and a minute before showtime dude comes in, and out of 300 seats he plops down directly behind me. horrifying behavior even pre-covid.

(neither of us was nude, sorry to say)

Imagine pulling the popcorn trick on yourself.

Why do you tempt us with such delicious thoughts?

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 7:05 AM (two hours ago)

Butter or salt?